The Best Apps for Building Community in Higher Ed [Updated 2022]

Once frowned upon in the classroom, social media and chat forums have now become the norm for college students to communicate with one another. This comes at a time where post-secondary learners aren’t necessarily satisfied with the current sense of community—or lack thereof—experienced online: 75 percent miss face-to-face interactions with faculty and their peers during class..¹

Here are five collaboration and study apps to help students form meaningful connections, share coursework and job opportunities and, ultimately, strengthen student-student bonds.

1. Discord

Discord is an instant messaging app that allows students to form group chats for audio, text and media sharing. Originally designed for gamers, Discord offers different servers, all of which have their own topics, rules and channels. Text channels enable students to send instant text messages to one another. Voice channels allow learners to send audio notes to individuals or groups. Not all students want to be on camera nor are they able to meet at a set time. Discord allows for asynchronous conversations that still make students feel part of a learning community. Students will appreciate being able to discuss assignments informally and share their progress through photos of their STEM formulas, for example, or describing how they arrived at an answer by sending a voice note to their peers.

2. Slack

Widely used in the corporate world, Slack enables students to stay in touch with their peers in and out of class. Students can create their own channels for a variety of purposes such as for group projects, sharing pet photos, note-taking and distribution and even memes. Slack also offers integrations with time management tools, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, Zoom and more. Students are able to share files and see one another through in-app calls, replicating the feeling of an in-person conversation. Slack allows for communication with educators, but additionally gives students the autonomy to form private groups for informal, non-academic activities including extracurriculars.

3. Goodwall

In the job market, it’s often not what you know, but who you know. That couldn’t be more true in today’s economy. Many campus jobs and co-op opportunities have been reduced due to cutbacks. Goodwall takes a social, more informal approach to the standard CV. Be sure to alert your students to this free app that allows them to connect on shared challenges, pitch their business ideas and discover internship and scholarship opportunities. Users are able to network with their peers from their institution and beyond. 

4. Padlet

Not everyone can commit to synchronous classes. Similarly, not everyone feels comfortable raising their voice in front of the entire group. Padlet serves as an online Post-It board, allowing students to create flashcards or individual notes in discussion boards. Post a question on your board. You could ask students what their ‘muddiest point’ of your lecture was at the end of class, or get students to share an interesting article they read in the past week that relates to your course material. Students can additionally create their own boards for a variety of purposes, like celebrating birthdays in friend groups or crowdsourcing ideas on an upcoming biology experiment. Even though students aren’t together, these boards can help replicate spontaneous back-and-forth conversations held in class.

5. Top Hat

Top Hat helps your students stay connected with one another before, during and after class. Create moments of connection between students by posing interactive discussion questions in class. Students can respond to one another’s comments, creating a lively learning environment. Give every learner a voice by using anonymous discussions to promote unrestricted debate and dialogue. Students can ‘upvote’ responses to discussions, giving them an indicator of who else is in the same boat. Even better, extend discussions outside of class and ask students to continue engaging with their peers on their own time—whether through lecture activities or homework assignments.

Andrew Duffy, Master Lecturer of Physics at Boston University, uses Top Hat to deliver lectures, labs and discussions—ensuring Physics never becomes a “spectator sport.” Top Hat has helped him create an interactive, discussion-rich learning environment that gets his students excited to learn. On the flip side, Duffy now gets the real-time feedback he needs to spot struggling learners. This approach has, in turn, boosted student confidence. “They walk out of our course feeling like they know this stuff, because they’ve had so much practice at it.”

References

1. Top Hat (2020). Top Hat Field Report: Higher Ed Students Grade the Fall 2020 Semester. https://tophat.com/teaching-resources/interactive/student-survey-report/